The amount of devices that is able to connect to the Internet of Things is expected to grow enormously. It is estimated that by the year 2020 50 billion devices will be connected. Therefore, it is no surprise that industry efforts and investments are directed towards this field. The new generation of mobile systems, 5G, is expected to bring new network and services capabilities. One aspect of the new capabilities relates to device-to-device (D2D) communication.
In a previous application of the applicants, European patent application 15197013.4, a method is described that enables a user equipment to access a local device connected to a local network, even if the user equipment is not connected directly to the local network, but is connected to a public network. The method involves an intermediary system that is configured to connect to the local network and to the public network and comprises the steps in the intermediary system of connecting to the local network and storing a device identifier of the at least one local device in the local network. The method further comprises connecting to the public network and transmitting profile information for the user equipment enabling the user equipment to present a representation of the local device in the local network. The profile information comprises the device identifier. The representation on the user equipment may be such that to a user of the user equipment and/or to applications running on the user equipment, the user equipment appears to be directly connected to the local network.
A problem may occur, however, when a user equipment tries to initiate a service of a local device that requires a connection with another local device. An example of initiating such a service would be instructing a television to play a video stream from a security camera. As a result of the above described method, to the user equipment it may seem as if the user equipment, the television and the security camera are all connected to one local network. However, in reality this may not be the case, which may cause a problem when instructing the television to play the video stream from the security camera.